Holy Trinity Church, showing the west and south sides of the church,
photographed from the field next to Clifton Road. The Royal Hotel
was close by and the back of the hotel can also be seen.

A year before the top card was posted a Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis
had published an article in the Pall Mall Gazette; he had
been visiting Matlock Bath on a beautiful summer day and was full
of compliments about the village and its scenery. Describing the
view from where he was sitting, high up on a terrace overlooking
Matlock Bath, he wrote that: "behind
me are the three grey gables of the Royal Hotel : to the right,
almost blotted out from view by the splendour of a great copper
beech, is the amber coloured spire of the church"[1].
The card's sender was also enjoying himself, "spending
a delightful holiday here : the scenery is grand" although
he made no specific comment about the church.

In August 1902 two people were arrested for breaking and entering
the church, as well as stealing the communion wine. Having locked
the church as he left the previous evening John Henry Stafford,
a member of the church choir, returned the next morning and noticed
a scythe standing against a pew - the point of the scythe was broken
and it was clearly not where it was normally stored. He and Samuel
Shimwell later went back into the church to investigate further.
They discovered that the north window, around 8 feet by 4 feet,
had a hole in it large enough for a man to get through. Both the
collecting box and the wine chest holding communion wine in the
vestry had been broken open and there was a corkscrew on the table.
A damask table cloth was also missing. This was later found in
the possession of a female who also had part of a black cassock
with her which seems to have been used to wrap up the bottles!
The woman, who was said to have been the look-out, had been found
lying "hopelessly
drunk" in
Crown Square and the thief was with her. He had a tell-tale bottle
of wine sticking out of his pocket[2].
The woman was eventually discharged but the crime was considered
very serious and the male was sentenced to seven years penal servitude[3].

The incumbent was the Reverend Charles Baker who, in 1912[4],
was to preach a Sunday evening sermon denouncing some of the villagers
for greed, claiming they had set up gods of their own. One of these
"gods" was the making of money, honestly and morally
if they could, but, above all, making it. "They" spent
their time catering for the lowest instincts of the human mind;
they catered for Sunday outings, and they were guilty of a great
folly[5].
One can only presume that the money makers who so offended their
parson were not in the congregation.

[1] Reported in the "Manchester
Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser", 27 July 1906
and also in the "Guide to Matlock and Matlock
Bath" (ca. 1907) Printed and published by Geo. Hodgkinson,
Matlock Printing Works.